Reviving this thread for another round of advice. Been discussing this with a few people, but I like to get a broad range of opinions. Thanks to everyone who has helped me through some of the difficult parts of this... adventure (JR, TMC, GMAN).
TL;DR: We asked for some critical details such as pictures, names, etc and were sent an ambiguous e-mail that did not respond to a single question. Not sure of my next step!
Now that I've given a synopsis, they've offered us a lot of one-sided 'deals' to which we've fought back. We asked for them to provide the following:
- Pictures of damage before/after.
- Current hardwood in apartment
- Name of company and contractor who gave the quote
- Copy of the quote
- Type of hardwood going into the apartment in quote
- Ability to have a contractor, of our choose, assess the situation
We talked to multiple contractors that said patching would be no issue at all. However, all of them wanted to see anything before saying anything official. Their response was as follows:
Their response seems to fail to answer any of our questions or portray really anything. We're not sure how to proceed. I believe the landlord has also moved. We're thinking of sending an e-mail asking them to please collect our requested information and provide their address. At that point, I believe we will file a claim to mediation, and if nothing comes of that we will have to 'lawyer up' and go to court. I'd rather avoid the 250/hr if possible, but it may not be possible. I hope we can recover our lawyers' fees if we end up winning.
We also found the following clause in the VA tenant landlord act:
Which we read as their responsibility to make us aware of any damage to the apartment, in writing, at time of the walk through. Considering they claim that there was substantial floor damage, in a heavily travelled hallway, there is no excuse not to mention it during the walkthrough. During the walkthrough they only talked about painting the apartment, which we had already discussed, in writing, prior to the walkthrough.
Thanks in advance for the advice. It's been quite stressful lately.